The funnel of marketing
X is audience. Y is product.
You as a marketer want to offer Y to X. X considers Y. X buys Y.
It is a cyclic process which in binary terms are:
- Awareness
- Conversion
Further division lead to a middle stage called:
Awareness < Consideration < Conversion
With time, more proposed models based on further definition of stages have come.
But for sake of simplicity, let's keep 3 and try to understand before expanding.
- Awareness is the time a potential customer gets active.
- Consideration is the time between potential customer is evaluating options.
- Conversion is when final transaction happens.
For simple marketing campaigns, knowing these stages and aligning content strategy accordingly results in better conversions and time efficiency.
Execution steps are:
Awareness: Outbound marketing techniques
Consideration: Building trust, social proof, offering guidance, clear terms & conditions
Conversion: When transaction happens.
Scientists further divided these 3 steps into:
-- Pre-awareness stage--
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Conversion
---Post purchase and nudges--
Pre-awareness stage
As the name suggest, it is branding.
Potential customer might have never thought of making a transaction with you but your brand stood out.
This stage has been what is evolving in current digital algorithms for google.
Ultimately, it has led to zero moments of truth.
For practical purpose, It is branding.
This includes color, fonts, language, logo etc.
Pre-awareness stage has led to 52% more conversion. People don't know why they chose certain brands over other. All this cumulatively, make pre-awareness stage.
Post-purchase and nudges
ATR-N model proposed this stage back in 1997. Many believe this is where marketing is headed currently.
Simply, you focus on retention and upsells.
These can be achieved via loyalty programs and optimized product strategy focusing on increasing revenue per user.
Experts believe product-led growth is further refinement of nudges and post-purchase behaviors.